Madhya Pradesh Government wakes up to the fact that squatters are illegally occupying state-owned properties worth over Rs 6,000 crore in Mumbai and wants to reclaim these.

If efforts being made by the Madhya Pradesh Government bear fruit, the faÃ§ade of Mumbai's prime real estate may change forever. The state wants to recover and sell vast properties, worth nearly Rs 6,000 crore, owned by it in the city.

State Minister for Commerce and Industry Babulal Gaur started the drive last year when he wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, seeking his help in evicting squatters from precious land which belonged to the erstwhile royals of Madhya Pradesh. The Provident Investment Company, referred to in government records as simply the Company, was formed in the 1920s with a paid-up capital of Rs 50 lakh to manage the properties of the state of Gwalior and of investors like Seth Gokuldas of Jabalpur.

It came to own a lot of property in Mumbai when several creditors defaulted on payments. After Independence, however, the properties came into the hands of Maharashtra. With Deshmukh's intervention, one of the properties on Lovedale Road has been sold for an undisclosed but astronomical sum.

Few people know the details of the properties, or of the existence of the Madhya Pradesh Government company, which owns some of the choicest real estate in Mumbai. An old man, known as Mr Menon, who lives at Edward Villa in Cuffe Parade, manages the Company with a staff of seven and earns meagre rentals. The Villa itself spans over10,000 sq ft, commanding a market price of Rs 22,000-25,000 per sq ft. If the decrepit property is refurbished and another five storeys are built on it, it would add 60,000 sq ft of prime space to the land-starved city."We will accept nothing less than the full value of the properties."Babulal Gaur,Commerce and Industry Minister, Madhya Pradesh

PLUM SLUM: Five acres of land in Dharavi belong to Madhya Pradesh

The Company also owns five acres (about 2.18 lakh sq ft) on Tank Bandar Road, where chawls have been standing since 1940. The price of land here is over Rs 8,000 per sq ft. On the same stretch, it owns another 1.2 lakh sq ft of land. On Modi Shaw Road, the Company has 20,000 sq ft, with a market value of Rs 10,000 per sq ft.

There are several other properties in the city at strategic locations like J.J. Hospital, Ibrahim Rahimtullah Road, Chowpatty French Bridge, Colaba Causeway, Mandlik Road and Matharpakhdi-each spanning over 10,000 sq ft-either owned by Madhya Pradesh or on a 99-year lease to the state from the Bombay Port Trust. Besides, the state also owns 359 acres of land in Thane, of which 99 acres have been acquired by Maharashtra.

But the most coveted piece of land at stake in Mumbai is the five acres near Sion railway station, in what is Asia's biggest slum, Dharavi. In 1983, the Maharashtra government had decided to annex it in the name of town planning, but the matter had gone to court and a verdict is still pending. However, there were attempts by both the states to solve the imbroglio. This included a bid by Deshmukh to remove encroachments. "The two governments have to come to an amicable settlement," says O.P. Rawat, principal secretary to Gaur, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, and one of the few people who know the case backwards.

IDLE BUCK: The Modi Shaw Road property is said to be worth Rs 20 crore

Along with the Mumbai showpieces is a 550-acre coffee estate at Binachi on the Kozhikode-Mysore highway in Kerala. It was leased by the Company to an unnamed individual in 1950 for Rs 3,600 per annum. The lessee stopped paying the rent in 1953, following which the courts ordered his eviction in 1969. For the next eight years, a court-appointed receiver controlled the estate, but by then a relative of the former lessee had become a powerful bureaucrat. More legal tangles followed.

When the maintenance of the estate was taken over by the Kerala government in 1978, 80 acres had been encroached upon and the nearly-two lakh coffee bushes reduced to a little less than 20,000. A report has now been drawn up by a Madhya Pradesh Government consultant, who has advised that the estate be developed for tourism. The matter was discussed at a meeting of the Company Board last week. "A final decision will be taken soon," says Sumit Bose, principal secretary, finance.

The first time a chief minister expressed interest in the properties owned by Madhya Pradesh was in the 1980s, when Arjun Singh, now Union human resources development minister, formed a committee to look into the matter. Former chief minister Digvijay Singh, too, wanted to reclaim the properties, but even with a friendly Congress regime in Maharashtra, nothing materialised.

Attempts at selling the plots were unsuccessful because of the leasing. Rawat, however, explains that states can cancel the lease and acquire land for public purposes, as in the case of Binachi. But then, property can often become a cause of friction between friends, families, and even states.